Perception
by Theonewhodidnotdoit
Summary: In a team or a family, perception is all-important. Oneshot. Drabble. Tiny hint of Robstar.


**Perception**

**Just getting my feet wet here before I launch into a proper multi-chap fic for Teen Titans. Feedback is greatly appreciated.**

Perception had always been somewhat of a skill for him. Even before Batman, he'd been good at spotting things. The birthday present behind his Father's back. The circus monkey sneaking up on him to steal his lunch.

The broken fibres of the trapeze's rope...

But after the... Incident, Bruce had trained that skill to a whole new level. He had been the apprentice of the greatest detective ever to live. And it showed. Absolutely nothing got by him. And that was perhaps the greatest gift he could have asked for if he had known that he would be living with Beast Boy. The slightest twitch on the sides of his mouth could tell him vast swathes of information on whatever horror awaited him the next time he entered his room, or his office. When it wasn't too bad, he'd let it happen, give the prankster something to enjoy. He thought he was one-upping his leader. Cute.

It worked on his other friends, too, even Raven. When Cyborg was worried or agitated, the seam of skin that bordered on his cranial dome went ever so slightly red, whether he wanted it to show or not. Raven's hood was an indicator not only of her mood and disposition, but the slight hints of body language that peeked through were brilliantly indicative of her inner thoughts, no matter what her tone or facial expression might be. Starfire was... More difficult. Obviously, as an alien, she had different mannerisms and indicators in her posture to humans, but the fact that her species tended to wear their hearts on their sleeves (or armbands, as the case may be) helped enormously. He still had no idea how much she liked him, if at all, but that was something that he could forgive himself for, it being a genetic flaw inherent to the Y chromosome.

The important thing was that he could read them all like a book by the end of the first year of knowing them. He knew when they were troubled, when something got under their skin, when they needed help, or just when they wanted it.

And for him, that was what being their leader was all about.

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Robin wasn't the only one who was perceptive. Maybe in a different way, of course, but he was too. Having a cybernetic eye and a computer hooked up to your brain helped. Robin analysed every quirk, every tic, and calculated the exact minutiae of every situation, and that was definitely impressive. His eyes, however, were limited. He couldn't see infrared, or tell when a person's body heat spiked. Where Robin had studied mannerisms, he had observed the biological side, reading how people were feeling without them even doing anything to arouse suspicion.

Ironically, Robin was the easiest to read in this way. Whilst the mask might hide him effectively from his own type of analysis, the jump in heartbeat whenever Starfire touched him was all too obvious. Man, that guy had it bad. Raven was similar. You couldn't hide behind a cloak when a certain someone could see right through it. Wait, that sounded bad. Not like that! Just... Heat waves. For... Just no. BB was pretty easy as well. That is, when he wasn't in animal form. Then things got weird. Every single one had different heart rates, average body heats, breathing patterns, the lot. Seemed he hadn't figured that out yet, though. Whenever he was feeling off, he'd mope around in his human form, trying to stay out of everyone's way, and failing miserably. They all knew his favourite hiding spots. Starfire was kind of hard to read this way, though. He had no idea how Tamaranian bodies worked, so all he could do was guess. Most of the time he didn't need to read her, though. When she was happy, she made it known. Plus, she almost never lied, and when she did it was ridiculously obvious. She usually just gave up immediately anyway and gushed.

And that was what he tried to be. The big brother figure, always there to help or give a push in the right direction if necessary. None of them had the best conventional family lives, so it helped to be around each other. After all, they were more than just a team.

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It barely needed to be said that she noticed things a lot. She did it without even trying. People would walk by her, feelings radiating off them like a Christmas tree, being so painfully obvious she had to shut herself up in her room just to get away from it all. She wasn't being antisocial. They were just being too social.

Being an empath was annoying at times. But very useful indeed at others. Emotions were universal. Every race in the universe had them, no matter how buried they were. Some were absent in some species, and others had them all. But all had some kind. Humans were lucky enough to have most, if not all of them. And they went around broadcasting them like phone masts. Robin, a stony blank face to some, was in fact a jumble of chaotic emotions all scrambling over each other, fighting for dominance. Just like any other boy. He was lucky enough to have the mask, and have picked up the "Batface" from his mentor, though. He was harder to read than most. Cyborg was a bit odd. The metal and circuitry got in the way of his projection, sometimes. In terms of his aura, it wasn't technically part of him, only the bits of flesh inside the shell were, but they channeled and shaped his essence in such a way that made it totally unique to him. It was intriguing, but you had to be standing at an awkward diagonal to him in order to get anything more than a general reading. You rarely ever needed it, though. Usually he'd be doing something odd, and that'd give it away. Starfire, on the other hand, was a freaking beacon. She seemed to alternate from a massive, all-consuming joviality that practically singed the wallpaper, to good-natured confusion, and then into a massive, spiralling depression that usually burned out immediately after Robin said something nice about her hair or something. She was a hurricane of overwhelming emotion, and yet she seemed to try and constrain herself enough to prevent her from going absolutely crazy. It was good to know that things could be worse. Beast Boy was, again, very easy to read. Most of the time he projected all over the place, but when he was troubled, he shut up like Robin. Ironic that she only knows that something's wrong when she can't tell whether something's wrong or not.

Of course, they all know that she could see into their heads on a whim. But they trusted her enough to not mind. Before, she wouldn't have stood for that. She would have told them to stop being fools, to not trust the grey girl with psychic powers because she'll end up bringing about the apocalypse. Robin once told her that Batman thinks like that, so he has a contingency plan to deal with each of the members of the Justice League, just in case they end up being his enemy. She feels sorry for that man, she really does. Trust is a great thing to have. She could see that now. And she would trust these four misfits with her life a thousand times over. That's what being a team was about.

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He liked to think he saw more than other people gave him credit for. Get real, he had a billion animals running around in his DNA, of course he was going to be able to see stuff. And hear it, too. And smell. Raven once said that if he had such good 'olfactory abilities' as she put it, (he did have to look it up) how could he stand to live in anything like his room? He tried coming up with something, but he'd just stumbled over his words and made no sense, receiving a raised eyebrow for his efforts. He could tell she was amused, though. Not exactly sure how, he just... Could. Call it instinct. It worked on everybody. Not just in life, in battle too. He could... Kinda predict how someone was going to move, and then make sure he wasn't in their way when they did. Of course, if they were just too damn fast, that wasn't exactly helpful, but it was a plus. He half expected Robin knew it, too. There had to be some reason someone was always covering his back.

To be honest, even though he could read pretty much anyone's movement, emotions and inner thoughts were a massive no-no when it came to Robin. For a while, near the beginning, he wondered if he even had any. It was probably the mask. Eyes are the windows to the soul, right? It was probably messing up all of the automatic reading stuff he had.

Then again, Star wasn't much better. Probably because she was an alien. And she generally wouldn't sit still for two minutes. And he thought he was hyperactive. She was practically a blur. Zipping over to babble at someone, then hugging (or breaking the back of) someone else. He just couldn't get a bead on her. That might be it. Who knows.

Then there was Cy. The eyes thing was there again. He only had one. The red one didn't even count. Plus, his body wasn't the greatest at expressing body language. It didn't react in the same way a real one did. It helped that he was horrible at hiding stuff with his face. Well, the three quarters of it that were left. It was a little funny, sometimes, to watch the faces he'd pull. Then again, he'd probably say the same for him...

Then there was Raven again. She didn't really show much but her eyes a lot of the time. But strangely, he could read her best. Maybe eyes were the windows to the soul... Wait, he'd already been in her soul. And... It had been purple. Like her eyes. Huh. Was that a coincidence? Or... Science? Never mind. If he asked anyone, they'd probably do that frowning, confused-looking grimace they all did when he asked a stupid question.

...Huh. He'd noticed that. Yup, no denying it now, he knew them damn well. They were pretty much his family after all.

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Many of the people who she had met would think that she was naïve. That was untrue. She was by no means naïve. The correct word would be inexperienced. And possibly unacclimatised. She was a stranger in a strange land, and had not yet figured out all of the social minutiae necessary for blending in. This meant she did not understand many things at first, having first to look at it from many angles to find the meaning. She could understand perfectly well. She just needed help in order to see. Once she did, she thought that she could be reasonably astute.

Being of a notoriously emotional people, she had managed "the nailing down" of reading emotions quite quickly. Robin was quite variable in that sense. One moment he could be smiling softly, radiating contentment, the next he could be the unfeeling, iron leader that they often needed. But over time, even in his latter state, she could detect the tiny hints that surfaced on his face. The slight gritting of the teeth and tightness of the jaw that occurred when he was bothered by something, usually when fighting Slade. The playful twitch of the lip when he was simply toying with the enemy, waiting for them to slip up, ready for the finish. Of course, the other emotions, the deeper ones, the ones she was particularly interested in were much more difficult. The mask made it harder. But he'd told them why he always wore it, and they respected him enough to keep that sacred, even if he was teased about other matters.

Beast Boy barely needed reading. He was outgoing and fun-loving, and even when he brooded it was rather blatant. He seemed to change form sometimes to illustrate how he felt. When relaxed, he might be a cat. When playful, a dog. He seemingly was the "open bound-paper reading device". Almost as exuberant as a Tamaranian, although that had gotten him in slight trouble with Knorf'ka Galfore when they had visited. Perhaps a bit brash.

She had begun spending more time with Raven recently, and thus could now notice some mannerisms she did not see beforehand in her best female friend. She would often twitch slightly when irked or surprised. Her cloak was seemingly a comforter of some sort, as she would often sink into it or pull the hood up when embarrassed, trying to hide the blush. It was slightly adorable, if that was the right word. Even more so when she could not shroud herself in darkness due to the fact that her hands were busy with nail varnish.

Cyborg was also not much trouble. He barely hid anything. He did the speaking of his mind. Whether he felt like joking or was being like the big brother, he would not hide much. And he would buckle under the pressure of the eyes of the puppy, should they require deployment. Then again, she supposed that he should be entitled to some secrets. She had kept her fair share, after all. They all had. They all still did. Robin's eyes, Beast Boy's family, and so on. She was sure that they would disclose if she asked, but she did not wish to. She trusted them. And they trusted her.


End file.
